Ghostwalk -- Opinions?

[Tzarevitch]

Bought it and like the book immensely, it will take some tweaking to integrate into my campaign, but not impossible. The only thing that makes me nervous are the yuan-ti. These guys have their scales in an awful lot of books. The year of the snake approaches?


hellbender

Honestly, I love yuan-ti. They're just so . . . evil and cool, the rationale why they hated Manefest struck me as stupid.

Unfortunately I just wasn't all that impressesed with Ghostwalk. Thankfully I read it at Barnes and Noble before I made the mistake of buying it.

As much as I despise White Wolf's gameplay problems, they do a very good job generating ambiance in their settings. Wraith, The Oblivion has great ambiance, Ghostwalk doesn't. The setting has all the feeling of a dead fish. Ghosts traditionally are creatures of great emotion. They remain with the living because some strong emotional tie keeps them around. The Ghostwalk setting sort of kills all of that. Think of playing Bob the accountant. . . but incorporeal.

Personally, I think the writers of the setting missed the boat completely. The thing that makes ghosts interesting is that they are NOT simply incorporeal versions of everyone else. They are extraoardinary because they suffered the trauma of death and they refuse to go quietly because of some strong emotion for something or because something important to them MUST still be done.

Like TiQuinn said, the setting stamped all of the mystery and magesty behind ghosts. The book seemed coherent and made sense. Quality of the product also seemed escelleny. I just couldn't bring myself to care (especially not at the price WoTC was asking for it.)

Tzarevitch

 

[Daredevill]

Re: Re: Ghostwalk -- Opinions?

I bought it. I give it a resounding "ehh."

It's unique, imaginative, and overall a boring read. I'll start with my biggest gripe about Ghostwalk, by far: the clumsy mechanic of a character with levels in a ghost class suddenly returning from the dead. They actually recommend that you keep track of a character's ghost levels' worth of hit points, skill point assignments, BAB bonuses, saving throw bonuses and feats so that if you have a "life epiphany" (the setting's term for a ghost returning to flesh and blood) you can redistribute them to your new, living class.

What a pain in the arse! That's exactly why, among my friends, we've house-ruled that instead of level loss from things like energy drain attacks you go in the hole XP-wise instead. Keeping track of where you place every single point at each level is an exercise in tedium. No thank you.

Two more things stuck out glaringly. First, I am still unclear on whether you are supposed to apply the ghost template to your character upon dying, or if you leave the stats unchanged. They spend a lot of time explaining about different types of ghosts and ghostly powers, but they never come out and explicitly state that you should apply the ghost template or not. I can infer from the descriptive text in the sidebar on page 8 that you do not apply the template, but that's just a guess based on later writings. I would have appreciated a clear, outline-format step by step walkthrough on how to convert a PC to a ghost, and the book lacks that, and that disappoints me.

Did you read chapter 1?

Page 10, 2nd paragraph: "If the creature chooses to remain on this side of the Veil of Souls instead of passing on, it exists as ethereal ghost, and the character immediately gains the ghost template..."

Seems pretty clear to me.

 

[enworldatemylogin]

{and frankly some of the feat and spell inclusion seem calculated to bolster page count.}

Actually, I included spells & feats that I felt were suitable for the theme of the book and were regionally appropriate for the included countries. That was some of the first stuff I did, so meeting my word count wasn't a worry at the time.

{{The year of the snake approaches?}}
{I think it's just that SKR likes them.}

Monte, too.

Must be a conspiracy, Andy Collins website mentions his campaign is also involving yuan ti.

 

[Olive]

Must be a conspiracy, Andy Collins website mentions his campaign is also involving yuan ti.

Actually, James Wyatt's Indian themed campaign has Yuan-ti as well!

As long as they leave out desmodu, more yuan-ti are fine with me.

 

[Welverin]

Re: Orcus factor...

I like Ghostwalk just for the Orcus factor.

I think it's time for you to make an addition to the old sig. Something along the lines of Orcus worshipper/fanboy/whore. Say after Appointed Pr-man...

 

[Nightfall]

Think I might just do that.